Sunday, September 14, 2008

The Best Argument Against Democracy

.. is a five minute conversation with an average voter.

Here's a letter to Deccan Chronicle in favour of the Indo-US nuclear deal:

I have been following (Brahma) Chellaney's articles on the nuclear deal. From the beginning he has been assiduously following a line quite opposite to the one held by the government. In a democratic country, every citizen has a right to express his or her opinion, and Chellaney is one among them. He, however, appears to be a diehard critic of the deal for reasons best known to him.

Excuse me, "reasons best known to him"? Here's this guy, who has been busting his hump, wading through the text of the various documents pertaining to the deal and the NSG waiver, and putting down bulleted points for why he is against the deal, and we still get questions like this.

Reminds me of the Friends episode where Phoebe announces that she wants to carry her brother's baby, and Ross lists a number of reasons why she needs to think this through, and Phoebe's reacts "What's your point?"

Staying on the nuclear deal, there seems to have been a sort of realignment among the supporters and opponents. Hindu started out as a critic, then revised its stance, and is now once again giving prominence to things that are wrong with the deal. DC, on the other hand, started out negative, but is keeping quite nowadays -- Chellaney's columns notwithstanding -- about the various bits of bad news (no columns from Seema Mustafa, too).